Several attempts were made to develop an automatic apparatus for providing various fried potato products.
Galockin et al. taught, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,722,267, a french fry vending machine which dispensed four different types of food stuffs, prepared from frozen potatoes. The need for storing frozen food permitted quite limited use in this case.
Campbell et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 5,272,961, disclosed an apparatus for vending french potato strips. This machine operated using fine grain potato powder which was stored in a hopper. The upper part of the machine required refrigeration for controlling humidity of the fine grain powder and for avoiding problems otherwise encountered with dispensing the powder. Similarly, a mixing mechanism (86) was also needed to ensure sufficient homogeneity of the rehydrated dough.
Dover, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,694,742, disclosed an automatic deep fat cooker. The intermediate dough was made of dehydrated potato powder. Dover noted that this method is very sensitive to deviations in cooking parameters such as time and temperature. As far as the quality of the product, the frying oil was required to be strictly controlled. This, however, was not easy to carry out, especially under varying conditions.